Our response to the Violence against women and girls call for evidence

Our Community Safety team play a key role in supporting customers experiencing domestic abuse (DA) to help put an end to it. To make their home a place of safety.

With this in mind we’ve taken the opportunity to respond to the Government’s Violence Against Women and Girls call for evidence in relation to the work we do to support customers who are experiencing or at-risk of domestic abuse.

If you’ve only got a few minutes, below is a summary of what we said.

• During the first national lockdown in Spring 2020 we supported more than 150 people who were at-risk of or experiencing domestic abuse reaffirming what we already knew: not every home is a safe sanctuary.
• By working with partners at a local level (for example, police, local authorities) we (as a housing provider and conduit of support for at-risk customers) can more effectively and efficiently provide appropriate assistance to our customers facing violence and abuse.
• Without third-party support we wouldn’t be able to tackle the violence and abuse that many of our customers experience so continued, and where possible increased, investment from local services is vital if we hope to put an end to violence against women and girls, much of which takes place in the home.
• Research tells us that women who experience abuse and violence in the home are more at-risk to homelessness, so this wide-reaching issue feeds into the national homelessness agenda.
• We believe housing providers can play a key role in sharing education and resources to increase awareness and understanding of the different forms of violence and abuse. If more awareness is raised about the nature of gender-based crime, the more likely people will be to identify and report issues.

If you’ve got more time, read our whole response here.

If you’d like to chat to us about our Community Safety services please contact us via our press office.